Our Mission Statement
Watch our founder, Mackenzie Krestul, speak to elementary students at a Kickoff Assembly.
Every child deserves a book of their own.
How it Works
Code Read primarily serves Title I schools in Southern California, along with programs supporting foster and unhoused youth. Through our FREE school program, students complete a literacy themed packet provided by Code Read. Once an entire grade level completes the task, they are rewarded with a visit from our Bookmobile, where each student can choose two new books from a diverse selection of reading levels and genres.
We also provide free book distributions for foster youth, family court, children's hospitals and housing-insecure families in Los Angeles County.
Currently, our focus is on Title I schools and underserved youth in Los Angeles County. Our partner elementary schools serve 600–900 students in grades K-8, the majority of whom qualify for free lunch and come from families living below the poverty level.
Code Read is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing new books to children in economically disadvantaged communities. Founded in 2016, Code Read is a response to the disparity between literacy levels in low-income communities and their more affluent counterparts. This gap is largely due to a lack of reading resources at home, a problem that Code Read hopes to solve. Our goal is to improve literacy levels and encourage enthusiasm for reading by giving kids books to call their own.